Tata Steel was awarded the TERI Corporate award for business response to HIV/AIDS 2008 last evening in New Delhi. The award was given away by the chief guest for the occasion, Mr. Kamal Nath, Honourable Minister of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. The award was given in collaboration with GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH - is an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations) to recognise and mainstream corporate leadership for HIV/AIDS interventions. It was received by Dr. H K Gardin, Head (Family Initiatives), Corporate Sustainability Services, Tata Steel.

This award was given in recognition for Tata Steel’s initiatives and progress made on the same in the last Financial Year. Tata Steel had applied in category III (as the company’s turnover is more than Rs. 500 Crores).

The TERI Awards for Tata Steel for its exemplary initiatives in the area of AIDS awareness is yet anther recognition for the Company and its commitment to providing better standards of living for the communities it operates in. The selection criteria for receiving the awards was an analysis of the objective of the study; response to the needs of the community, process of implementation, difference made by the programme to the community and sustainability component of the programme. A team of experts from TERI, Dr. Ms. Jyotsna Bapat, Dr. Atanu Sarkar and Ms. Sophia Lonappan) had visited us at Jamshedpur for an on-site due diligence and verification. They interacted with the stakeholders and also held meetings with them during their site visit.

The health and safety of the employees and the community is extremely critical for Tata Steel and is enshrined in the Company’s Vision. The Company has taken proactive steps in AIDS prevention by spreading awareness not only amongst its employees, but also the community at large so that the inhabitants of Jamshedpur and at other locations, remain safe.

Tata Steel has evolved a corporate sector model to prevent the spread of STD/HIV/AIDS, globally and nationally. This model is being shared through forums like ILO, Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Global Compact Initiatives, WHO-SE Asia Regional Office, NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation) and JAPC (Jharkhand AIDS Prevention Consortium) and more recently through Global Reporting Initiatives. This programme extends to the rural and urban populace residing in and around Jamshedpur.

The Global Business Coalition, which is an alliance of over a hundred major international companies who are expected to lead by example, is dedicated to combating this disease. Tata Steel is one of its founding members. The prestigious “Global Business Coalition Award (GBC) for 2003 for Business Excellence” was conferred on Tata Steel for its response to the epidemic and its outstanding HIV/AIDS Awareness work in Jamshedpur. The award is conferred on companies who have evolved best practices on HIV/AIDS prevention, especially to reduce the stigma and discrimination. This award places Tata Steel’s initiatives at par with the best in the world, to be showcased globally.

About Tata Steel

Established in 1907 as Asia's first integrated private sector steel company, Tata Steel in 2006 on a combined basis is the world’s sixth largest steel producer in terms of actual crude steel production with geographic footprints in India, South East Asia, UK and Europe. With the recent acquisition of Corus Limited, the combined enterprise has an aggregate crude steel production capacity of around 28.1 million tonnes with approximately 82,700 employees across the four continents. Tata Steel carries out its corporate social responsibility through TSRDS, a dedicated department that was established in the year 1979 to systematize community development efforts undertaken by the Company. It reaches out to 800 villages in all and directly and indirectly provides benefits to 6 lakh people.